Lisa Sandberg: The halls are filled with lobbyists

As the special session enters its second week, lobbyists in the Capitol are everywhere. While we won’t know for several weeks how much is being spent to keep them in the game, we can assume it’s a lot.

Last week, the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice analyzed lobby spending during the two special sessions last summer and found that some business interests actually hired more lobbyists during the two-month specials than they did during the five-month regular session.

Consider the Chickasaw Nation, an Oklahoma tribe that operates its state’s largest gambling operation. Concerned that Texas might open its doors to competing casinos and slot machines, the Chickasaw Nation raised its lobby contracts by 200 percent, to a maximum of $300,000. RJ Reynolds Tobacco increased its lobby tab 67 percent, to a maximum of $250,000, during the special sessions, according to TPJ, and wound up killing a proposed cigarette tax hike.

Hiring more lobbyists doesn’t always translate to success. Time Warner Cable increased its spending 53 percent by adding two new lobbyists, including U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay’s brother, Randy, to the 12 they already had. But they came out poorly against SBC, which still had them completely outgunned. (According to TPJ, SBC was spending as much as $6.9 million on 237 lobbyists by September, compared to $580,000 by the cable giant).

Sixty-one special interests that were not registered in the regular session hired lobbyists in the special sessions. Among them was the Texas Beverage Association, a soft-drink trade group. The beverage group paid 10 lobbyists up to $255,000 and saw the fizz go out of the junk food taxes.

Andrew Wheat, TPJ’s research director, said it’ll take a month or more for the Ethics Commission to release new figures on special interest lobbying for the current special session. “Anybody who has an interest in property taxes or business taxes will be in there,” Wheat said.